Caroline Mimbs Nyce’s recent article in the Atlantic discusses the challenges inherent in our seemingly endless adjustment to ever-changing COVID realities. She cites data that quantify the frequency of mental health and emotional disturbances caused by the pandemic-related disruption to our regular routines. Our inability to know what will happen to us next causes stress. For many, this reality has led to sadness, depression, anxiety, and general unhappiness.
This should not come as a surprise: extended exposure to adversity and stress is bad for people.
Mimbs Nyce cites Steven Taylor, a psychiatrist who has written on the psychological effects of pandemics. Taylor says our COVID-induced sadness is due to the burden of accumulated adversity. The concept of accumulated adversity, however, existed well before the onset of the pandemic.
In 2008, the World Health Organization issued a report that identified stress as one of the top determiners of health disparities. In January 2018, the American Psychological Association found minorities and low-income populations experience higher levels of stress. Extended exposure to adversity correlates with depression, excessive social stress, cardiovascular disease, and other health risks like obesity. Research also shows cumulative lifetime adversity has differential impacts across variables like socioeconomic status and race.
Again, not a big surprise. All these findings make sense on a basic level. Extended exposure to stress is bad for people and minority groups are more likely to experience extended exposure to stress.
But for those who still had some doubt, the empirical correlations prove it.
Despite this grim scenario, there is cause for hope. Mimbs Nyce highlights the fact that people are resilient. She quotes Pauline Boss, an expert in child and family studies, who suggests that resilience results from increased tolerance for ambiguity. According to Merriam-Webster, ambiguity is “something that does not have a single, clear meaning”. As our ability to tolerate ambiguity – meaning the uncertainty that characterizes life during a pandemic – increases, we become more resilient.
Resilience, however, involves much more than the ability to tolerate uncertainty. In non-scientific terms, resilience is the ability to bounce back. The capacity to develop resilience is influenced by individual, family, school and community factors. For minority youth, developing resilience is important as research shows it helps youth buffer some of the negative effects of discrimination. The Identity Project is one example of an effective identity consolidation strategy that fosters resilience.
The pandemic has forced everyone to accept new levels of uncertainty in their life. Beyond helping Americans deal with COVID-related stress, becoming more comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty might yield additional benefits for society.
How? By increasing our overall tolerance of uncertainty. Intolerance of uncertainty is a dispositional characteristic that varies across individuals. The inability to tolerate uncertainty is associated with cognitive patterns of prejudice. As Americans develop a greater tolerance for uncertainty, we could become a less prejudicial society.
COVID has been incredibly difficult on society, but it has not affected each of us equally.
Nevertheless, Mimbs Nyce’s exploration of how Americans, irrespective of race, are experiencing more emotional distress provides us with an interesting opportunity. Indirectly, she invites us to explore how our collective COVID experience, and increased tolerance for uncertainty, could lead us to create a kinder, more companionate, and more empathic society.
Some researchers assert that the Black Lives Matter movement, which gained increased visibility after the death of George Floyd, provided some white people with an opportunity to recognize some of the advantages they have had their entire life. Could it be that people struggling to confront the uncertainty in their own lives were more able to empathize with the fears and risks that minority groups face at the hands of law enforcement?
It’s really quite simple. COVID has forced everyone to confront uncertainty. No one enjoys prolonged exposure to uncertainty; it is stressful. Uncertainty and stress make us feel bad. No one likes to feel bad. When we increase our tolerance for uncertainty we start to feel better. The greater our tolerance for uncertainty the less likely we are to maintain fixed mindsets and hold on to preconceived notions.
Some may say it is too naïve to think that, just because everyone in American society has felt some sort of accumulated adversity due to the pandemic, we will a more compassionate and empathetic society. I don’t think it is. I don’t think I am the only person who has become more sensitive to others’ hardships as a result of facing my own adversity.
There are no guarantees in life. Knowing this, we choose to be kinder, more empathetic, and less judgmental with each other.